Beverly Stein lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband Rob who is a writer. She is president of the Public Stategies Group.[1], a consulting organization to government and non-governmental organizations.

Education

Stein received her BA from the University of California at Berkeley in Urban Studies in 1970 and her law degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1976.[3]

Career

Before Stein was elected to a county position she served as a State Representative in the Oregon Legislature for three terms. Prior to that she was an attorney in private practice and a strategic planner and facilitator for non-profit organizations, small businesses and government.[4]

Portland New American Movement/Democratic Socialists of America

In August of 1976, as part of an outreach drive, the leaders of the Eugene chapter of New American Movement, which predated the Portland chapter, organized a potluck picnic in Laurelhurst Park in Portland for people to learn about NAM. It was publicized
in the Scribe, Portland’s underground newspaper.

A study group ran for about a year and, at the end of it, Richard Healey came through town, and Rhys Scholes and Katherine Pritchard and Beverly Stein said, “Well, we don’t know if we really want to start a chapter of NAM, but let’s put out a call and just see if people come.” A whole bunch of people came, and so we did it. Scholes: There were maybe twenty people to begin with, and Beverly Stein was the key leader.

My grandfather was a socialist, but I came to it through feminism. I went to Berkeley and was involved in the antiwar movement, but mostly as a foot soldier. After I graduated, I got involved in a feminist group that really turned out to be a socialist-feminist group. We produced a radio show for KPFA called “Un-Learning to Not Speak,” and we had a study group, but then I went off to law school in Madison and I joined a group of women who studied Marxism. We would very carefully study the texts. So I was ripe when I came out to Portland

As NAM, we did have a meeting where we decided to pursue public power.

Bev Stein went on to serve three terms as State Representative in the Oregon Legislature (as a Democrat), and then Chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners and County Chief Executive for eight years.

She credits her successful election campaigns to her experiences gained in NAM/DSA and also to her NAM/DSA cohort who supported her in these
elections and beyond.[6]

Communist allies

I mean, that was NAM, the communists and then the New Leftists. We were mostly a New Left chapter, but we had connections with these old commies.

This also highlights how active we were, personally. From the NAM perspective, we led double lives. We had double meetings where we would meet as NAM, and then we’d be involved in the Trojan Decommissioning Alliance or other kinds of activities. We’d have the NAM Energy Task Force one night, and then the next night we’d go to the Public Power Coalition meeting.

New American Movement 10th convention

In 1981 Bill Barclay, Political Secretary; Beverly Stein, Portland NAM and Jim Shoch, San Francisco NAM led a workshop entitled Chapter Strategies and Coalitional Work at the 10th Convention of the New American Movement. The convention was held in a union headquarters in Chicago and ran from July 29 - August 2, 1981.[8]

Reagan years

NAM's work was hindered by changes instituted by President Ronald Reagan. According to Stein;[10]

Another part of the answer to your question is the political repression that started up once Reagan came into office. In 1980, I led a legal team defending people doing civil disobedience at the Trojan Nuclear Plant out of Legal Aid, the local Legal Services program.

But in ’80, when Reagan got elected, he attacked all kinds of organizing that came out of Legal Services, so I quit because I knew what I was doing was going to get them in trouble. That kind of support, both for our work, and through our work, to the community, was cut away.

Working in the Democratic Party

It was at that point that we adopted the inside-outside strategy: working inside the Democratic Party, but also outside, building a movement. So we didn’t abandon that commitment to building a movement.

Merging with DSOC

Beverly Stein became a co-chair of Portland Democratic Socialists of America afer the DSOC/NAM merger in 1982.[14]

I remember our first joint meeting, and everybody was nervous and looking around. And at the end of the meeting, Dick Celsi (a DSOC member) raised his hand and said, “Do any of you guys play bridge?” And [in NAM] we had this long-standing Sunday night socialist bridge club, and we said, “Well, sure.” And that was our first joint project, and something of an icebreaker as well.

The way we merged was to make Bill Thomas and I cochairs of the DSA chapter.

State legislature run

In 1988, Beverly Stein successfully ran, as a Democrat, for the Oregon State legislature;

That’s what makes me think that we still had an active chapter when I ran for the legislature, because we consciously were saying, “Beverly looks like someone who can actually pull it off, so let’s do it.” I mean, I was a nobody. Everyone thought, “She’ll never win, she’s a socialist.” But all my friends were organizers, and we ran the best community-based campaign that anyone had ever seen at that point.

Well, part of it was this inside-outside strategy. As we moved towards working with the Democratic Party, we saw electoraltics as being a more effective way to focus our energy. But I always talked about, even then, creating an inside-outside movement.

When I was in office, I would help organize people outside, to organize against me, or to support what I was doing. But NAM carried on long after that. When I ran for governor, I would have people coming up to me all over the state from other NAM chapters, saying, “I remember nyou from NAM,” and they would be automatically on board. There was a Eugene chapter, there was Corvallis chapter, one in Klamath Falls, and another in Albany.

Still a socialist?

I hold a lot of the values that I held as a socialist, and I still have the same outrage at inequalities, but I don’t talk about socialism anymore. It just seems to be something that people don’t get, and the world’s changed.